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The Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Bayern (regional ecclesiastical archive of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria, LAELKB) was founded in 1931 and constitutes the central specialised institution for any aspect of ecclesiastical archival studies within the reach of the ELKB. It heads the specialised supervision over ecclesiastical archival studies and the historical ecclesiastical libraries, supports and advises the ecclesiastical providers of archival services and record offices in all aspects that refer to archives, historical libraries and the registrar's office. As part of its specialised supervision, it monitors the governance of ecclesiastical archives and historical libraries and takes in case of danger all necessary decisions to preserve the endangered archival material.

The LAELKB preserves the archival material of the leading organisations within the church, of additional ecclesiastical agencies (including that of many parishes) and of current institutions as well as their predecessors in the individual territories, the evangelical ecclesiastical administration of which had been united during the early nineteenth century into the "Protestantische Kirche in Bayern rechts des Rheins" (Protestant Church in Bavaria east of the Rhine). In addition, decedents' estates of church dignitaries, collections of images, prints, placards, maps, plans, seals, films, sound recording media, videos, newspaper cuttings etc. are included. Among the tasks of LAELKB counts the care of archives, record offices and historical book collections in connection with the fieldwork within the dioceses, in particular in the c.1540 parishes of the ELKB. The holdings are analysed by way of electronic databases, inventories and card indexes and made accessible to the interested public within a set of users' regulations. The comprehensive library is passively connected to general inter-library loan. A limited loan of books is possible under the rules of the library regulations.

The archival holdings of LAELKB are ordered in accordance with a stratigraphy of the collections. On the one hand, this order is structured hierarchically, on the other chronologically. Other holdings cannot be classified as belonging to either of these fundamental principles, for example in the field of collections or decedents’ estates.

The holdings may be subdivided into the following main groups:

Predating the foundation of the kingdom of Bavaria (1806): Principality Brandenburg-Ansbach, Principality Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Other Territories and Imperial Cities, Imperial Knights

Extra-Bavarian Territorial Churches

Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)